1. Field of the Invention
The present invention related to (i) a remotely-controlled vehicular toy, (ii) a positionally-sensitive control device usable as part of a remote-controller for providing positional control signals to remotely-controlled toys, and (iii) a gaming system based on a plurality of remotely-controlled vehicular toys that both emit, and sense, light beams.
2. Background of the Invention
2.1 Remotely-Controlled Vehicular Toys
Various remotely-controlled vehicular toys area currently commercially available (circa 1990). Some of these remotely-controlled vehicular toys are usable in play to simulate warfare, such as by charging into obstacles or other toys, or by firing toy projectiles.
An effective war gaming system using a plurality of remotely-controlled vehicular toys would preferably use toy vehicles that are not only remotely-controlled for maneuvering, and to simulate the fire of armament, but which are, additionally, sensitive to the armament fire of other, competing toys in order to determine which toy, and toy operator, emerges the "victor" in a simulated battle. Because the armament fire of actual military vehicles, such as tanks, is directional, and only occasionally effective to disable another real vehicle (for example, another actual tank at which the armament is fired), it would be useful if the toy vehicles could support some sustained form of war gaming play, and could be able to take more than one "hit" before becoming disabled. Just as the progressive degradation and disablement or real armaments is visually observable during the course of a battle, it would further be useful if a remotely-controlled vehicular toy used in war gaming could visually indicate each individual "hit" and/or the total accumulated "hits." The vehicular toy would desirably simulate disablement after the accumulation of a sufficient number of such "hits."
2.2 General Directional Control Mechanisms
Similarly to the present availability of various remotely-controlled vehicular toys, there exist diverse manually-activated directional control mechanisms. These mechanisms sometimes serve as component parts of a remote controlled transmitter. They permit directional commands, and other commands such as commands directing the firing of armament, to be generated. One common such directional control mechanism is called a joystick.
It would be desirable if a control mechanism that is similar to the actual control mechanism of a military vehicle or helicopter could be used in conjunction with a remotely-controlled vehicular toy used in way gaming. Such as remote control mechanism would be desirably be full-floating, meaning that a left or right steering control could be affected by turning a steering wheel (or other hand grip) either to the left or to the right, while a forward and back directional control would be accomplished by tilting the steering wheel either forward or backward. Such a multi-axis directional control might desirably be coupled with trigger mechanisms, or other switching devices, mounted to the steering wheel (or other hand grip) so that secondary control signals could be generated with the fingers even while one or both hands were otherwise engaged in commanding the spatial movement of the remotely-controlled vehicular toy.
2.3 A Specific Previous Tilt-Detecting Mechanism
The positionally-sensitive directional-signal-generating control device in accordance with the present invention will be seen be sensitive to spatial orientation in order to provide directional signals similar to those that might otherwise be generated by a joystick. A previous mechanism that is sensitive to tilt in fore-and-aft, and side-to-side, axis in order to generate electrical signals is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,189 for a Body-Mounted Video Game Exercise Device to Braeunig. Braeunig's positional controller attaches to the user's upper back with an arrangement of straps and buckles. The tilt of the user's upper body is detected by an array of mercury switches, with resultant electrical signals being transmitted by wire to the input of a video game. The specific angle of tilt required to actuate the mercury switches can be adjustable, thereby varying the degree of upper body movement needed to play a particular video game. Additional controls for the video game, such as a firing control, are provided by a hand-held push button attached to the controller via a flexible cord.
Such a previous spatial control mechanism is both (i) limited in its permissible spatial orientation during use, and (ii) tethered by wires to a device, namely a video game, that uses the positional electrical signals generated by the spatial control mechanism.